


The Disappearances of Megan Stewart and Amy Herman

by MoonSilverSprite



Series: Buzzfeed Unsolved - Fictional Disappearances [1]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-09-30 11:54:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17223593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonSilverSprite/pseuds/MoonSilverSprite
Summary: Tonight, Buzzfeed Unsolved look at the eerie disappearance of two friends. Megan Stewart and Amy Herman vanished in 2007; Megan after she went to meet someone she had met online and Amy three weeks later. (Crossover with the found footage film 'Megan is Missing')





	The Disappearances of Megan Stewart and Amy Herman

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Origamidragons](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/gifts).



> I cannot find any fanfiction of the movie 'Megan is Missing' anywhere online. As far as I am aware, this is the first story.
> 
> I felt disgusting after I wrote this. I had to have a shower, I felt so horrified.

Today we are looking at one of the saddest abductions we have ever had the pleasure – or displeasure, you may say – to examine. The kidnapping and possible murder of Megan Stewart and Amy Herman.

_Oh, this story makes me cry._

You cried?

_Well, I’m a dude – I don’t cry._

Guys can cry.

_I just – it makes my stomach contort, reading about this._

Let us begin. Megan Stewart, aged fourteen, and Amy Herman, also aged fourteen, both lived in North Hollywood, California in January 2007. On January 14th 2007, Megan Stewart disappeared after going to meet a boy named ‘Josh’, whom she had met online. Three weeks later, on February 4th 2007, Amy Herman left her house and simply vanished into thin air.

_The same guy goes after two girls? And – didn’t they ever teach these two not to meet somebody online without an adult present?_

Only Megan went to see him. Amy vanished – three weeks after the fact.

_I know. But – oh, great._

What?

_These – these girls went off alone. Megan, I understand, it was the first one, but Amy – looking over the notes, her life was threatened – and then she just disappears?_

Let me get to that, dude. (clears throat) Some background history first. Born on August 12th 1992, Megan lived with her mother, as her father had left some years prior to Megan’s disappearance. There is some evidence, as gathered from Amy’s phone, found during the search for her, that Megan wanted to run away from her home life, as she did not get on with her mother. More evidence, gathered from Amy’s video camera, suggested that Megan’s stepfather sexually abused her from the age of nine. Her stepfather was in prison after Megan reported the abuse aged eleven. Her mother apparently refused to believe her.

_Poor girl. She’s – had a tough life. I – I can see why an internet predator would go after her. She – they go after kids who are vulnerable. Predators – they attack vulnerable people._

It’s why serial killers attack prostitutes. Or runaways. Like up in Seattle in the eighties.

_And Amy?_

Amy Herman, born January 10th 1993, seemed to have had a stable family life. Unlike Megan, she was sheltered and had both parents. Her parents say that she acted a lot younger than her actual age of fourteen. On January 13th 2007, Megan Stewart was given the webcam address of a man that her friend, whose name is undisclosed, had been talking to.

_This was the infamous Josh?_

It certainly was.

_How come the police never caught him? I mean, during the original investigation? They had Megan’s computer, didn’t they?_

I’m going to get to that point in a few minutes. Josh pretended to be a seventeen-year-old boy –

_Because seventeen-year-old boys don’t assault women?_

Dude!

_They can, realistically._

This is turning into a very dark episode.

_And besides, Megan didn’t look fourteen either. Just look at her! Even without all that makeup, she looks at least eighteen! Did – did Megan have some sort of ageing disease?_

If that’s true, it goes for every underage girl in the case. I looked in the file footage the police put out. None of them look under eighteen.

_I’m started to be reminded of Sailor Moon._

Josh used the moniker ‘Skaterdude’. The photo he used was found to be one stolen from a private photo album in Idaho.

_Private? He didn’t get it online?_

No. But I’m going to get there. I’m sorry I have to keep saying that, but this is quite a complicated case and I have to discuss all of the details. Megan Stewart disappeared on January 14th, after supposedly agreeing to meet Josh. Her mother pleaded for her to return, as shown from the news footage.

_‘She’s a good girl, just don’t hurt her?’ She doesn’t sound upset._

What?

_I mean, the way she’s talking sounds as if she’s telling someone to remember to pick up things from the grocery store. I know we shouldn’t talk like this, I know all parents react differently, but she doesn’t sound as if she’s lost the most important thing in her life. Was she on drugs when they filmed this?_

If she loved Megan and had been taking drugs to numb the pain, I actually wouldn’t be surprised.

_There is footage from behind a diner in North Hollywood, showing Megan being led away by a man. It is unclear whether she knew him or not._

On January 29th, the press revealed that Amy Herman had told police that a man named Josh had supposedly conversed with Megan online. Over the next few days, police tried to analyse her computer for any evidence, but could not find a valid IP address.

_How? I mean – how?_

He used different addresses each time. All from public places. Well, I suppose a brothel could be considered public –

_Dude, I need a drink._

But five days after Amy had told police, she vanished while she went out for a walk. She left the house at 12.40pm, approximately, but was not reported missing by her parents until 4.07pm.

_Had her identity already been released by the press?_

Yes.

_Is everyone in Hollywood stoned?_

(wheezes)

_That’s ridiculous! A – a minor – has their identity released, the police can’t track an IP address of a man who may have abducted and murdered someone and the mom is clearly off her meds. I’m starting to think the police department from South Park would have been more competent!_

Amy Herman’s camera was found in a public trashcan on March 12th near the Angeles National Forest. Footage from the camera was not shown to the public, but after the FBI examined it, they gave a public statement on March 16th. They said that the video footage caused them to believe that Megan Stewart and Amy Herman were dead.

_My word. Those poor girls._

Yes. I know, dude. I – feel sick to my stomach.

_Do they – have any suspects at all?_

Well, a thirteen-year-old girl contacted in San Diego online by a man also named Josh in May 2008, fifteen months after the girls disappeared, told her mother that he wanted to meet her. The man was found to be a convicted sex offender, but had been in prison when both girls vanished.

_So, a dead end?_

Pretty much.

_Anyone else?_

There is one more suspect. A twenty-nine-year-old named Dean West was arrested in 2013 for the abduction and murder of Jenna Boot, aged seventeen, in Santa Barbara.

_Oh, this guy._

Yes. West has a bit of a tragic childhood himself. At the age of eleven, Dean’s parents discarded him in a foster home in San Bernardino. He shared the home with six other children, five of them female. The foster parents used to leave the house frequently overnight, leaving the older girls to babysit the children. The oldest, then sixteen, had her boyfriend over one night in early 1996. The children were watching TV in the same room as the couple, who were having loud, rough intercourse.

_That’s not a very good babysitter._

It gets even worse. When Dean was twelve, the girl was in charge of the younger children when the foster couple went out – Dean, a ten-year-old boy and a seven-year-old girl – I can’t finish this. I simply can’t finish this. But (deep breath) it does explain quite a lot about why he did his crimes.

_Wasn’t the older girl – wasn’t she charged?_

Yes. She videotaped everything and her boyfriend filmed it.

_(expletive)_

(clears throat) Dean West was first arrested in 2003 for public urination. Not too bad of a crime; any of us might be arrested for that after a bad night. But his first believed victim was a thirteen-year-old neighbour, who was found stabbed underneath a water tower, only eight weeks later.

_Dean West murdered more five young women, all aged between thirteen and sixteen, in an eleven-year period between 2005 and 2016. All of the girls were found in either garbage bags or barrels, from the warehouse that his foster brother worked at. His brother was cleared of all crimes. Did he meet the other girls online?_

No – he used to sneak into youth clubs or parties. He was young enough to pass for a seventeen-year-old. He used to chat up girls and if they wanted to carry on the party somewhere else, he’d take them. His crime spree spread from Santa Maria to Indio. He was caught in July 2013 after he tried soliciting a fifteen-year-old girl in Santa Barbara. When West’s house was searched, police found a hairclip of a rose in bloom, belonging to Jenna Boot. Video footage found from a camera in his house indicated that he had definitely held Jenna in his house, from her abduction on April 14th until at least April 15th.

_My word._

But something that Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI notice is that there is a lull in his spree. His second murder, that of thirteen-year-old Shannon De Luzio of Pasadena, was in 2005, but his next known murder was of fourteen-year-old Ava Allan in Lakewood in 2008. Despite this, he had visited at least ten parties in that time period, according to witness statements, phone records and camera footage.

_Dean West was known to visit brothels in this time period, including one that the IP address had been tracked to. Something else that is also of interest is that one of his foster sisters was married to a man whose middle name was Joshua. In addition, his younger foster sister, the seven-year-old from the incident in 1996, was a student teacher at a school in Idaho. The exact same school that the photograph ‘Josh’ had used was traced to._

Things don’t look good for him.

_Witnesses upon viewing the videotape claimed that they were certain that ‘Josh’ was Dean. To further implicate him, the body of 2012 victim Kirsty Ward, 16, was found only two hundred and fifty yards from where Amy’s camera was discovered. As of this date, while Dean West has not been charged with the abductions of Megan Stewart and Amy Herman, he is considered the prime suspect._

That’s all from us. Goodnight.

**Author's Note:**

> Dean West is named after two individual serial killers, one American and one British; Dean Corll and Fred West.


End file.
